Battle of Lake Benacus

The Battle of Lake Benacus was fought along the banks of Lake Garda in northern Italy, which was known to the Romans as Benacus, in early 269 AD, between the army under the command of the Roman Emperor Claudius II and the Germanic tribes of the Alamanni and Juthungi.

Ιn 268, τhe Alamanni, who had been making incursions into Roman territory since the reign of Marcus Aurelius, had broken through the Roman frontier at the Danube and crossed the Alps, when the power struggles around Mediolanum (Aureolus' revolt, murder of Gallienus, confrontation between Aureolus and Claudius) forced the Romans to denude the frontier of troops. The Alamanni started pillaging northern Italy while Claudius headed north to confront them. Details of the battle are unknown but future emperor Aurelian certainly played a part. After this victory, Claudius assumed the title Germanicus Maximus.

Famous quotes containing the words battle and/or lake:

    The Battle of Waterloo is a work of art with tension and drama with its unceasing change from hope to fear and back again, change which suddenly dissolves into a moment of extreme catastrophe, a model tragedy because the fate of Europe was determined within this individual fate.
    Stefan Zweig (18811942)

    They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)